A TALE OF TWO WILD CARDS
By Zachary Kram
August 23, 2015
Just before the trade deadline, I wrote that the American League playoff picture seemed to be taking shape. At the time of that column, the Yankees had built a seven-game lead in the East and the Royals a nine-game advantage in the Central, making for two strong division favorites; the Astros and Angels were still battling in the West, but the runner-up appeared poised to host the wild-card game.
Three weeks later, only the Royals have upheld their part of that bargain, and that’s largely attributable to the subpar play of their competition—through Friday’s games, no other Central team had a winning record.
But although the Royals seem guaranteed to clinch their first division title in 30 years, the Yankees’ lead came crashing down as quickly as you can say “Troy Tulowitzki.” Toronto won 14 of 15 games after acquiring the Rockies’ erstwhile shortstop and briefly upended …
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LAST-PLACE RED SOX FIRST TO SKIRT MINORITY RULE
By Murray Chass
August 20, 2015
Commissioner Rob Manfred’s plan to enhance Major League Baseball’s hiring of blacks, Hispanics and women got off to a rousing start this week with the Boston Red Sox hiring of Dave Dombrowski as president of baseball operations. Dombrowski is neither black nor Hispanic or a woman.
He is, however, an outstanding general manager and a man of unparalleled class, and I would hire him to run my team if I had a team. But that is not the point here and not the reason I view the Red Sox decision with sarcasm.
Dombrowski’s hiring came only five days after MLB issued a news release trumpeting its hiring of an executive search firm to assist minority candidates in pursuit of significant MLB positions.
To be honest, I can’t blame …
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WHEN GAMBLING ISN’T GAMBLING
By Murray Chass
August 16, 2015
It has taken me longer than it probably should have. I would see signs for something called DraftKings, and I would ignore them. I’m not the type of consumer whose attention is grabbed by an advertisement so I was never curious about what this DraftKings thing was about.
At some point along the way someone must have told me DraftKings had something to do with betting, of which I am not a fan. I always felt I worked too hard to make money to squander it by giving it away. I never even followed my father’s penchant for playing poker, and he was a winning, if conservative, poker player.
Eventually, I learned that DraftKings is …
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